Archive for October, 1999

Up until recently, McDonald’s has had a near flawless security record. It is the restaurant that other restaurants model themselves after. The rigorous physical and mental training, drilling of critical procedures in emergency situations, and self-sacrifice for the sake of the restaurant are all stressed to the utmost degree in the pre-employment training of all prospective employees. If the requirements are not met, then the person is not hired. Only those people that demonstrate the highest ability of verbal communication, coordination, politeness, and overall aptitude are taken onto the job, as is evident by the high quality of service obtained at these restaurants. However, this is no longer sufficient. Recently, several burglaries of McDonald’s restaurants have been linked back to the same man. This man, aptly named the “Roofman Robber,” cuts holes in the roofs of the restaurants and, at closing time, lowers himself into the locked building. He is able to somehow compromise and intimidate the highly trained staff, forcing them to hand over the money. He then locks them in the cooler and vanishes from the scene. He has successfully hit 35 restaurants leaving little or no clues behind, and there are no signs that indicate him stopping any time soon. Let’s just pray that he doesn’t start targeting Taco Bell.

Wow. I’m really tired. I was falling asleep in front of the computer at 9 o’clock tonight and then got talked into going out. Now it’s almost 3 in the morning, and I have class in a few hours. I don’t think my body can take much more of this before it collapses under the weight of weeks without sufficient rest. If I happen to die, I’ll be sure to have someone tell you so you don’t wonder why I’m so silent.

Oh by the way, if you’re a resident DJ, don’t play the same damn songs every week in the same order. It means you are lame. Really.

Check out some uncut, behind the scenes footage of the Woodstock 99 raves. You’re able to catch a small glimpse of the life-loving, body-showing, thumping, bumping, all-night long parties, all the way down to the spinning djs and the naked crowd. Part 1 is here.

Whats up people? The flu has been beating the crap out of me for the past two days, but my body decided to open a can of whoopass on it this morning, just in case you cared. Anywho, I am currently in a network administration class at school and I needed to get some info on writing shell scripts (if anyone knows of any good sites that aren’t worded like yiddish, please e-mail me – thanks). So I decided to buy a book and unleash the power of my mind. I ordered ‘Learning the bash shell – 2nd ed.’, an O’Reilly and Associates book (the best computer books out there, BTW) online for $20 + $5 for shipping. The cool thing is that this book costs $30 at Borders or Barnes & Noble, and I don’t even have to drive up there. I just open my mail tommorow and *poof* – my book. Cool. Check out some other good deals at Bookpool.com here.

I didn’t hear anything about this event until the second day was nearly over, and it sounds like it was a terrific couple of days. There were performances by Underworld, Chemical Brothers, DJ Shadow, Moby, Autechre, Mixmaster Mike, Derrick May and others, including more “conventional” performers like Beck, Rage, Tool, etc. The focus of the show was not on big performers in terms of popularity and sales, it was more based on the musical competence of the performers. And as a result,

Coachella was able to avoid the Limp Bizkits and Korns who might sell millions of copies, but whose amped-up audiences have helped turn recent music festivals into something akin to fraternity hazing rituals.

SonicNet has a nice write-up about The Fragile. If you like the album, then check it out. It’ll give you some things to think about. Although if you don’t want your thoughts regarding the album to change, then don’t read it. They say,

What Reznor is not, and knows he’s not, is a melodist. Almost all of his tunes lurk around a few notes the same way, and you can tell exactly when he’s going to start screaming. On the other hand, he’s rivaled only by Kevin Shields as rock’s greatest texturalist, and The Fragile sounds magnificent.

I never really considered this idea before. I’ve always marvelled at how the sounds of his music roll around in my head and in and out and on top of each other, making my skin tingle, but the more I think about it, the more I agree that his songs do lack melodic variety. It’s more the same tones/chords/progressions repeated with different effects applied to them, at least it strikes me that way as I sit here now. They also mention that “The Fragile is clearly meant to be a grand statement on the scale of Pink Floyd’s The Wall,” but “it’s got is a serious sprawl problem, with no compelling justification for its expansiveness. … Far too much of the second disc just recapitulates the ideas of the first one, sledgehammer style.” I don’t think I can respond to this, yet. I haven’t listened to the album enough to become intimately familiar with the ‘storyline’ of the album, but now I will be looking for it. I don’t know if that’s good.

Who was it that decided women’s chests should be covered, but men’s need not be? Did it just happen coincidentally because women needed to wear support to hold them puppies up, so it became natural, accepted, and expected to wear stuff over ‘em? Anyway, women are starting to see the folly of that logic (as men have for as long as I can remember) and remove those shirts. A woman in Florida shed her top, was arrested for disturbing the peace, but then declared innocent of any wrongdoing in court because it’s not illegal to be topless in Florida and nobody’s peace was disturbed by her uhh.. exposure. I believe it is time for women to step up to that equal rights plate! Hear that ladies? Lose the shirt!

And actually. If more women would adopt this attitude, then we wouldn’t have this whole sperm problem. *wink*

When you start getting older and pissed off at everyone, don’t let anyone tell you you’re too old to start killing people. Take Ben Collier for example.

A 103-year-old man, apparently vexed at being yelled at, opened fire on his 45-year-old grandson, injuring him, police said today.

The grandson had complained about the condition of the apartment he was renting from Ben. Ben didn’t like that one bit. I have an unconfirmed report that he was quoted as saying, “You think it’s dirty? I’ll show you dirty, bitch.” Whereupon he opened fire with a large-caliber handgun, hitting the grandson several times. Police arrived quickly to find Ben standing over his grandson trying to load a rifle. Another unconfirmed quote has him saying, “I just wanted to finish that dirty bitch off.”

It seems Ben was a celebrated WWI veteran and somewhat of a hero in the town. In an interview not long ago, he (actually) did say this,

“I can’t get over how bad the children are these days,” Collier told the newspaper. “They’d just as soon kill you as look at you. I can remember how we used to sleep out in the yard in the summer without a care in the world, and you can’t do that now.”

A new generation of crime has been born. A technique has been discovered by criminals which allows them to mutate into the animal of their choice to elude capture by authorities. A chinese man named Lu was able to master the art of gopher transformation. He was wanted for 12 years for the theft of some money. The police had searched his home many times before finally noticing something strange about a particular closet.

They moved it and found Lu hiding in a three-foot hole he had dug underneath the closet.

The newspaper said he had used the hole as a hiding place for 12 years, emerging occasionally at night.

Unfortunately, Lu managed to revert back to human form before authorities were able to gain any insight into how he managed the transformation. Investigations are still underway.Source: Excite